The Romance of Industry and Invention Part 11

A word in closing about accidents, which are often due to carelessness and recklessness. A cyclist has no right to ride at ten or fourteen miles an hour in a crowded thoroughfare. He takes his life--and other people's!--in his hands if he does so. No less is caution needed on hills, the twists and turns in which are unseen or unfamiliar, and where the bottom of the incline cannot be seen. As the saying goes, 'Better be a coward for half an hour than a corpse for the rest of your lifetime.'

But experience is the best guide, and no hard-and-fast rules can be laid down for exceptional circ.u.mstances.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Dandy-horse.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VIII.

STEAMERS AND SAILING-SHIPS.

Early Shipping--Mediterranean Trade--Rise of the P. and O. and other Lines--Transatlantic Lines--India and the East--Early Steamships--First Steamer to cross the Atlantic--Rise of Atlantic Shipping Lines--The _Great Eastern_ and the New Cunarders _Campania_ and _Lucania_ compared--Sailing-ships.

THE CARRYING-TRADE OF THE WORLD.

Of all the industries of the world, that which is concerned with the interchange of the products of nations is suffused with the most interest for the largest number of people. Not only is the number of those who go down into the sea in ships, and who do business on the great waters, legion, but three-fourths of the population of the globe are more or less dependent on their enterprise. The ocean-carrying trade we are accustomed to date from the time of the Phoenicians; and certainly the Phoenicians were daring mariners, if not exactly scientific navigators, and their ships were pretty well acquainted with the waters of Europe and the coasts of Africa. But the Phoenicians were rather merchant-adventurers on their own account than ocean-carriers, as, for instance, the Arabians were on the other side of Africa, acting as the intermediaries of the trade between Egypt and East Africa and India. In the early days, too, there is reason to believe that the Chinese were extensive ocean-carriers, sending their junks both to the Arabian Gulf and to the ports of Hindustan, long before Alexander the Great invaded India. But there is nothing more remarkable in the history of maritime commerce than the manner in which it has changed hands.

Even down to the beginning of the present century, almost the whole of the carrying-trade of the Baltic and the Mediterranean was in the hands of the Danes, Norwegians, and Germans, while our own harbours were crowded with foreign ships. This was one of the effects of our peculiar Navigation Laws, under which foreigners were so protected that there was hardly a trade open to British vessels. It is, indeed, just ninety years since British ship-owners made a formal and earnest appeal to the government to remove the existing shackles on the foreign trade of the country, and to promote the development of commerce with the American and West Indian colonies. One argument of the time was the necessity for recovering and developing the Mediterranean trade, as affording one of the best avenues for the employment of shipping and the promotion of international commerce. It was a trade of which England had a very considerable share in the time of Henry VII., who may very fairly be regarded as the founder of British merchant shipping. He not only built ships for himself for trading purposes, but encouraged others to do so, and even lent them money for the purpose. And it was to the Mediterranean that he chiefly directed his attention, in eager compet.i.tion with the argosies of Venice and Genoa. There resulted a perfect fleet of what were called 'tall ships' engaged in carrying woollen fabrics and other British products to Italy, Sicily, Syria, and the Levant, and in bringing home cargoes of silk, cotton, wool, carpets, oil, spices, and wine.

Steam has worked a change in favour of this country nowhere more remarkable than in the Mediterranean trade. When the trade began to revive for sailing-vessels, by a removal of some of the irksome restrictions, Lisbon was the most important port on the Iberian Peninsula for British shipping. There was a weekly mail service by sailing-packets between Falmouth and Lisbon, until the Admiralty put on a steamer. Some time in the 'thirties,' two young Scotchmen named Brodie Wilc.o.x and Arthur Anderson had a small fleet of sailing-vessels engaged in the Peninsular trade, and in the year 1834 they chartered the steamer _Royal Tar_ from the Dublin and London Steam-packet Company. This was the beginning of the great Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, destined to revolutionise the carrying-trade both of the Mediterranean and the East. When the Spanish government negotiated for a line of steamers to be established between England and Spain, Wilc.o.x and Anderson took up the project, organised a small company, and acquired some steamers, which at first did not pay. They persevered, however, until shippers saw the superiority of the new vessels to the old sailers, and at last the Peninsular Company obtained the first mail-contract ever entered into by the English government. This was in 1837; the Cunard and Royal Mail (West Indian) lines were not established until 1840. In a couple of years the Peninsular Company extended their line through the Straits to Malta and Alexandria, and again to Corfu and the Levant. In 1840 they applied for and obtained a charter as the Peninsular and Oriental Steam-navigation Company, with the object of establishing a line of steamers on the other side of the Isthmus of Suez, from which have developed the great ramifications to India, China, j.a.pan, the Straits Settlements, and Australia. It was, indeed, through the Mediterranean that we obtained our first hold on the Eastern carrying-trade.

In considering the development of maritime commerce, it is always to be remembered that the design of Columbus and the early navigators in sailing westwards was not to find America, but to find a new way to India and Far Cathay. Mighty as America has become in the world's economy, its first occupation was only an incident in the struggle for the trade of the Far East. But with the occupation of America came two new developments in this carrying-trade--namely, one across the Atlantic, and one upon and across the Pacific. To the eventful year in which so many great enterprises were founded--namely, 1840--we trace the beginning of steam-carrying on the Pacific, for in that year William Wheelwright took or sent the first steamer round Cape Horn, as the pioneer of the great Pacific Steam-navigation Company. Within about a dozen years thereafter, the Americans had some fifty steamers constantly engaged on the Pacific coast of the two Continents, besides those of the English company. Out of one of those Pacific lines grew Commodore Vanderbilt's Nicaragua Transit Company, a double service of two lines of steamers, one on each side of the Continent, with an overland connection through Nicaragua. Out of another grew the New York and San Francisco line, connecting overland across the Isthmus of Panama--where M. de Lesseps did _not_ succeed in cutting a Ca.n.a.l. And out of yet another of those Pacific enterprises, all stimulated by Wheelwright's success, grew in the course of years a line between San Francisco and Hawaii, and another between San Francisco and Australia. Some forty years ago the boats of this last-named line used to run down to Panama to pick up pa.s.sengers and traffic from Europe, and it is interesting to recall that at that period the design was greatly favoured of a regular steam service between England and Australia _via_ Panama. A company was projected for the purpose; but it came to nothing, for various reasons not necessary to enter upon here. But as long ago as the early fifties, when the Panama Railway was in course of construction, there were eight separate lines of steamers on the Atlantic meeting at Aspinwall, and five on the Pacific meeting at Panama. Later on, when the Americans had completed their iron-roads from ocean to ocean across their own dominions, they started lines of steamers from San Francisco to China and j.a.pan. And later still, when the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed across Canada, a British line of ships was started across the Pacific to Far Cathay, and afterwards to Australia and New Zealand. So that the dream of the old navigators has, after all, been practically realised.

The repeal of the corn laws gave an immense impetus to British shipping, by opening up new lines of traffic in grain with the ports of the Baltic, the Black Sea, and Egypt; and the extension of steamer communication created another new carrying-business in the transport of coals abroad to innumerable coaling stations. Thus demand goes on creating supply, and supply in turn creating new demand.

From the old fruit and grain sailers of the Mediterranean trade have developed such extensive concerns as the Cunard line (one of whose beginnings was a service of steamers between Liverpool and Havre), which now covers the whole Mediterranean, and extends across the Atlantic to New York and Boston; the Anchor line, which began with a couple of boats running between the Clyde and the Peninsula, and now covers all the Mediterranean and Adriatic, and extends from India to America; the Bibby line, which began with a steamer between Liverpool and Ma.r.s.eilles, and now covers every part of the Mediterranean (Leyland line), and spreads out to Burma and the Straits. These are but a few of many examples of how the great carrying-lines of the world, east and west, have developed from modest enterprises in mid-Europe. And even now the goods traffic between the Mediterranean and the United Kingdom, North Europe and America, is less in the hands of these great lines than in that of the vast fleets of ocean tramps, both sail and steam.

One of the most wonderful developments in the carrying-trade of the world is the concern known as the Messageries Maritimes of France--now probably the largest steamer-owning copartnery in the world. Prior to the Crimean War, there was an enterprise called the Messageries Imperiales, which was engaged in the land-carriage of mails through France. In 1851 this company entered into a contract with the French government for the conveyance of mails to Italy, Egypt, Greece, and the Levant; and as years went on, the mail subsidies became so heavy that the enterprise was practically a national one. During the war, the Messageries Company's vessels were in such demand as transports, &c., that the company had to rapidly create a new fleet for mail purposes.

With peace came the difficulty of employing the enormously augmented fleet. New lines of mail and cargo boats were therefore successively established between France and the Danube and Black Sea; Bordeaux and Brazil and the River Plate; Ma.r.s.eilles and India and China, &c. In fact, the Messageries Company's ramifications now extend from France to Great Britain, South America, the whole of the Mediterranean, the Levant, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the China Seas, and the South Pacific.

Few people, perhaps, have any conception of the numbers of regular and highly organised lines of steamers now connecting Europe and America.

Besides the Messageries, the Austro-Hungarian Lloyd's and the Italian mail lines run between the Mediterranean and the River Plate. Argentina and Brazil are connected with different parts of Europe by about a dozen lines. Between the United States and Europe there are now about thirty distinct regular lines of steamers carrying goods and pa.s.sengers; and about a dozen more carrying goods only. Four of these lines are direct with Germany, two with France, two with Holland, two with Belgium, one with Denmark, and two with Italy, one of which is under the British flag. All the rest of the pa.s.senger lines and most of the cargo lines run between the United Kingdom and the United States. As for the 'tramps' steaming and sailing between North America and Europe, they are of all nations; but again the majority fly the British flag, though once upon a time the American-built clippers, of graceful lines and 'sky-sc.r.a.ping' masts, used to monopolise the American carrying-trade under the stars and stripes. Once upon a time, too, these beautiful American clippers had the bulk of the China tea-trade, and of the Anglo-Australian general trade. But they were run off the face of the waters by the Navigation Laws of America and the shipping enterprise of Britain. The great and growing trade between the United States and India, too, is now nearly all carried in British vessels; and a large part of the regular steam service between New York and the West Indies is under the British flag. That a change will take place when America repeals the laws which forbid Americans to own vessels built abroad or manned by foreigners is pretty certain.

With regard to India, the growth in the carrying-trade has been enormous since Vasco da Gama, four hundred years ago, found his way round the Cape of Good Hope to Calicut. For an entire century, down to 1600, the Portuguese monopolised the trade of the East, and as many as two and three hundred of their ships would often be gathered together in the port of Goa, taking in cargo for different Eastern and European ports.

To-day, Goa is a deserted port, and the Portuguese flag is rarely seen--a ship or two per annum now being sufficient for all the trade between Portugal and India. In the century of Portuguese prosperity the English flag was hardly known in Eastern waters. It was the Dutch who drove out the Portuguese; and the reason why the Dutch were tempted out to India was because the rich cargoes brought home by the Portuguese could not be disposed of in Portugal, and had to be taken to Amsterdam, or Rotterdam, or Antwerp, where the opulent Dutch merchants purchased them for redistribution throughout Europe. This is how the Dutch came into direct relations with the Indian trade before the English, and why Barentz and others tried to find a near way to India for the Dutch vessels by way of the north of Europe and Asia. Failing in the north, the Dutch followed the Portuguese round the Cape, and reaching Sumatra, founded the wide domain of Netherlands-India. This occupation was effected before 1600; and between that year and 1670 they expelled the Portuguese from every part of the Eastern Archipelago, from Malacca, from Ceylon, from the Malabar Coast, and from Maca.s.sar.

The Dutch in turn enjoyed a monopoly of the Indian trade for about a hundred years. Then with the rise of Clive came the downfall of the Dutch, and by 1811 they were stripped of every possession they had in the East. Later, we gave them back Java and Sumatra, with which Holland now does a large trade, reserved exclusively to Dutch vessels. But in India proper the Dutch have not a single possession, and it is doubtful if in all the Indian Peninsula there are now a hundred Dutchmen resident.

Two immense streams of trade are constantly setting to and from India and Europe through the Suez Ca.n.a.l and round the Cape. Not only is the bulk of that trade conducted by the well-known Peninsular and Oriental, British India, City, Clan, Anchor, and other lines (though the Messageries Maritimes, North German Lloyd's, and other foreign lines have no mean share), but the whole coast-line of India is served by the steamers of the British-India and Asiatic lines; and British vessels conduct the most of the carrying-trade between India and Australia, China, j.a.pan, the Straits, Mauritius, &c.

A new carrying-trade was created when the Australasian colonies were founded one after the other--in the taking out of home manufactures, implements, machinery, &c., and bringing back wool and tallow; and then gold, wheat, fruit, and frozen meat. This colonial trade is now divided between sailers and steamers, and in the steamer traffic some of the foreign lines are eagerly bidding for a share. Similarly, a new carrying-trade has been of quite recent years developed by the opening up of South Africa, and this is practically all in British hands.

An important item of international carriage of recent development is the mineral oil of America and Russia. The carriage of these oils is a trade of itself. Another special branch of the world's carrying-trade is connected with the sea-fisheries. All the fishing-grounds of the Atlantic and North Sea may be said to be now connected with the consuming markets by services of steamers. The cod-fishers off the Banks of Newfoundland transfer their dried and salted fish to vessels which speed them to the good Catholics of Spain and France and Italy, just as the steam auxiliaries bring to London the harvests gathered by the boats on the Dogger Bank.

Of late years not unsuccessful efforts have been made, especially by Captain Wiggins, to establish direct communication between Great Britain and the arctic coasts of Russia once every summer. And hopes are entertained that on the completion of the railway from Winnipeg to Fort Churchill, the greatly shorter sea-route _via_ Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay may greatly facilitate communication with Manitoba and the Canadian North-west.

It is computed that on the great ocean highways there are not fewer than ten thousand large and highly-powered steamers constantly employed. If it be wondered how sailing-vessels can maintain a place at all in the race of compet.i.tion in the world's carrying-trade, a word of explanation may be offered. Do not suppose that only rough and low-valued cargo is left for the sailers. They still have the bulk of the cotton and wheat and other valuable products, not only because they can carry more cheaply, but because transport by sailing-vessels gives the merchant a wider choice of market. Cargoes of staple products can always be sold 'to arrive' at some given port, and it is cheaper to put them afloat than to warehouse them ash.o.r.e and wait for an order.

What, then, are the proportions borne by the several maritime nations in this great international carrying-trade? The question is not one which can be answered with absolute precision, but the tables of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade enable one to find an approximate answer. In 1893 the tonnage of steam and sailing vessels of all nationalities in the foreign trade entering and clearing at ports in the United Kingdom was 74,632,847, of which 54,148,664 tons were British, and 20,484,183 tons were foreign. In the foreign total, the largest proportions were Norwegian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and French.

The Teutonic races have thus the most of the ocean-carrying; the United States proportion of the above total was small.

So far the United Kingdom. Now let us see what part British shipping plays in the foreign trade of other countries. We find that the total tonnage of the British Empire was 10,365,567. The other princ.i.p.al maritime countries owned 12,000,000 tons. Therefore, roughly speaking, the British Empire owns about five-elevenths of the entire shipping of the world. Even so recently as thirty years ago, about two-thirds of the ocean-carrying trade was performed by sailing-vessels; to-day, about four-fifths of it is performed by steamers.

THE FIRST STEAMER TO CROSS THE ATLANTIC.

The earliest steamers the world ever saw, not reckoning the experimental craft constructed by such men as Fulton, Bell, Symington, and Watt, were those employed in the transatlantic trade. As far back as the year 1819, the Yankee paddle-steamer _Savannah_, of three hundred tons burden, crossed from the port of that name, in Georgia, to Liverpool. She occupied twenty-five days upon the pa.s.sage; but, as she was fully rigged, and under all sail during at least two-thirds of the voyage, the merit of her performance, as an ill.u.s.tration of the superiority of the engine over canvas, is somewhat doubtful. Yet she was beyond dispute the first steamer to accomplish a long sea-voyage, and to the Americans belong the credit of her exploit. Indeed, from the time of their last war with us, down to within a quarter of a century ago, our Yankee neighbours generally seemed to be a little ahead of this country in maritime matters. They taught us a lesson in shipbuilding by their famous Baltimore clippers, and they were the first to demonstrate in a practical manner, and to the complete capsizal of the learned Dr Lardner's theories, the possibility of employing steam for the purposes of ocean navigation.

Although in 1838 the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_ successfully made the journey from England to America, yet five years before that date, Canadian enterprise accomplished the feat of bridging the Atlantic Ocean with a little vessel propelled wholly by steam. This was the _Royal William_, whose beautiful model was exhibited at the British Naval Exhibition in London, where she attracted the attention and curiosity of the first seamen in the empire. The _Royal William_--named in honour of the reigning sovereign--was built in the city of Quebec by a Scotchman, James Goudie, who had served his time and learned his art at Greenock. The keel was laid in the autumn of 1830; and her builder, then in his twenty-second year, writes: 'As I had the drawings and the form of the ship, at the time a novelty in construction, it devolved upon me to lay off and expand the draft to its full dimensions on the floor of the loft, where I made several alterations in the lines as improvements. The steamship being duly commenced, the work progressed rapidly; and in May following was duly launched, and before a large concourse of people was christened the _Royal William_. She was then taken to Montreal to have her engines, where I continued to superintend the finishing of the cabins and deck-work. When completed, she had her trial trip, which proved quite satisfactory. Being late in the season before being completed, she only made a few trips to Halifax.'

The launching of this steamer was a great event in Quebec. The Governor-general, Lord Aylmer, and his wife were present, the latter giving the vessel her name. Military bands supplied the music, and the shipping in the harbour was gay with bunting. The city itself wore a holiday look. The _Royal William_, propelled by steam alone, traded between Quebec and Halifax. While at the last-named place, she attracted the notice of Mr Samuel Cunard, afterwards Sir Samuel, the founder of the great trans-continental line which bears his name. It is said that the _Royal William_ convinced him that steam was the coming force for ocean navigation. He asked many questions about her, took down the answers in his note-book, and subsequently became a large stockholder in the craft.

The cholera of 1832 paralysed business in Canada, and trade was at a standstill for a time. Like other enterprises at this date, the _Royal William_ experienced reverses, and she was doomed to be sold at sheriff's sale. Some Quebec gentlemen bought her in, and resolved to send her to England to be sold. In 1833 the eventful voyage to Britain was made successfully, and without mishap of any kind. The _Royal William's_ proportions were as follows: Builder's measurement, 1370 tons; steamboat measurement, as per Act of Parliament, 830 tons; length of keel, 146 feet; length of deck from head to taffrail, 176 feet; breadth of beam inside the paddle-boxes, 29 feet 4 inches; outside, 43 feet 10 inches; depth of hold, 17 feet 9 inches. On the 4th of August 1833, commanded by Captain John M'Dougall, she left Quebec, via Pictou, Nova Scotia, for London, under steam, at five o'clock in the morning.

She made the pa.s.sage in twenty-five days. Her supply of coal was 254 chaldrons, or over 330 tons. Her captain wrote: 'She is justly ent.i.tled to be considered the first steamer that crossed the Atlantic by steam, having steamed the whole way across.'

About the end of September 1833, the _Royal William_ was disposed of for ten thousand pounds sterling, and chartered to the Portuguese government to take out troops for Dom Pedro's service. Portugal was asked to purchase her for the navy; but the admiral of the fleet, not thinking well of the scheme, declined to entertain the proposition. Captain M'Dougall was master of the steamer all this time. He returned with her to London with invalids and disbanded Portuguese soldiers, and laid her up off Deptford Victualling Office. In July, orders came to fit out the _Royal William_ to run between Oporto and Lisbon. One trip was made between these ports, and also a trip to Cadiz for specie for the Portuguese government.

On his return to Lisbon, Captain M'Dougall was ordered to sell the steamer to the Spanish government, through Don Evanston Castor da Perez, then the Spanish amba.s.sador to the court of Lisbon. The transaction was completed on the 10th of September 1834, when the _Royal William_ became the _Ysabel Segunda_, and the first war-steamer the Spaniards ever possessed. She was ordered to the north coast of Spain against Don Carlos. Captain M'Dougall accepted the rank and pay of a Commander, and, by special proviso, was guaranteed six hundred pounds per annum, and the contract to supply the squadron with provisions from Lisbon. The _Ysabel Segunda_ proceeded to the north coast; and about the latter part of 1834 she returned to Gravesend, to be delivered up to the British government, to be converted into a war-steamer at the Imperial Dockyard. The crew and officers were transferred to the _Royal Tar_, chartered and armed as a war-steamer, with six long thirty-two pounders, and named the _Reyna Governadoza_, the name intended for the _City of Edinburgh_ steamer, which was chartered to form part of the squadron. When completed, she relieved the _Royal Tar_ and took her name.

In his interesting letter, from which these facts are drawn, to Robert Christie, the Canadian historian, Captain M'Dougall thus completes the story of the pioneer Atlantic steamer: 'The _Ysabel Segunda_, when completed at Sheerness Dockyard, took out General Alava, the Spanish amba.s.sador, and General Evans and most of his staff officers, to Saint Andero, and afterwards to St Sebastian, having hoisted the Commodore's broad pennant again at Saint Andero; and was afterwards employed in cruising between that port and Fuente Arabia, and acting in concert with the Legion against Don Carlos until the time of their service expired in 1837. She was then sent to Portsmouth with a part of those discharged from the service, and from thence she was taken to London, and detained in the City Ca.n.a.l by Commodore Henry until the claims of the officers and crew on the Spanish government were settled, which was ultimately accomplished by bills, and the officers and crew discharged from the Spanish service about the latter end of 1837, and _Ysabel Segunda_ delivered up to the Spanish amba.s.sador, and after having her engines repaired, returned to Spain, and was soon afterwards sent to Bordeaux, in France, to have the hull repaired. But on being surveyed, it was found that the timbers were so much decayed that it was decided to build a new vessel to receive the engines, which was built there, and called by the same name, and now [1853] forms one of the royal steam-navy of Spain, while her predecessor was converted into a hulk at Bordeaux.'

This, in brief, is the history of the steamer which played so important a role in the maritime annals of Canada, England, and Spain. Her model is safely stored in the rooms of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, where it is an object of profound veneration. At the request of the government, a copy of the model was made, and formed part of the Canadian exhibit to the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893.

It was not, however, until five years later that the successful pa.s.sages of two memorable vessels from England to America fairly established the era of what has been called the Atlantic steam-ferry. These ships were respectively the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_. The former was a craft of about 700 tons burden, with engines of three hundred and twenty horse-power: she sailed from Cork on the 4th of April 1838, under the command of Lieutenant Roberts, R.N., bound for New York. The latter vessel was a steamer of 1340 tons, builders' measurement, with engines of four hundred and forty horse-power: she was commanded by Captain Hoskins, R.N., and sailed from Bristol on the 8th of April in the same year, bound likewise for New York. The _Sirius_, it was calculated, had a start of her compet.i.tor by about seven hundred nautical miles; but it was known that her utmost capabilities of speed scarcely exceeded eight knots an hour; whilst the _Great Western_, on her trial trip from Blackwall to Gravesend, ran eleven knots an hour without difficulty.

The issue of the race was therefore awaited with the utmost curiosity on both sides of the Atlantic. Contemporary records usually afford good evidence of the significance of past events, and the interest in this novel ocean match was prodigious, to judge from the accounts with which the Liverpool and New York papers of the day teemed. The following is in brief the narrative of the voyage of these two famous ships across the Western Ocean. The _Sirius_, after leaving Cork on the 4th of April, encountered very heavy weather, which greatly r.e.t.a.r.ded her progress. She arrived, however, off Sandy Hook on the evening of Sunday, the 22d of April; but going aground, she did not get into the North River until the following morning. When it was known that she had arrived, New York grew instantly agitated with excitement.

'The news,' ran the account published by the _Journal of Commerce_ in the United States, 'spread like wildfire through the city, and the river became literally dotted all over with boats conveying the curious to and from the stranger. There seemed to be a universal voice in congratulation, and every visage was illuminated with delight. A tacit conviction seemed to pervade every bosom that a most doubtful problem had been satisfactorily solved; visions of future advantage to science, to commerce, to moral philosophy, began to float before the "mind's eye;" curiosity to travel through the old country, and to inspect ancient inst.i.tutions, began to stimulate the inquiring.

'Whilst all this was going on, suddenly there was seen over Governor's Island a dense black cloud of smoke spreading itself upward, and betokening another arrival. On it came with great rapidity, and about three o'clock in the afternoon its cause was made fully manifest to the acc.u.mulated mult.i.tudes at the Battery. It was the steamship _Great Western_, of about 1600 tons burden (_sic_) [the difference probably lies between the net and the gross tonnage], under the command of Lieutenant Hoskins, R.N. She had left Bristol on the 8th inst., and on the 23d was making her triumphant entry into the port of New York. This immense moving ma.s.s was propelled at a rapid rate through the waters of the Bay; she pa.s.sed swiftly and gracefully round the _Sirius_, exchanging salutes with her, and then proceeded to her destined anchorage in the East River. If the public mind was stimulated by the arrival of the _Sirius_, it became almost intoxicated with delight upon view of the superb _Great Western_. The latter vessel was only fourteen clear days out; and neither vessel had sustained a damage worth mentioning, notwithstanding that both had to encounter very heavy weather. The _Sirius_ was spoken with on the 14th of April in lat.i.tude 45 north, longitude 37 west. The _Great Western_ was spoken on the 15th of April in lat.i.tude 46 26' north, longitude 37 west. At these respective dates the _Great Western_ had run 1305 miles in seven days from King Road; and the _Sirius_ 1305 miles in ten days from Cork. The _Great Western_ averaged 186-1/2 miles per day, and the _Sirius_ 130-1/2 miles; _Great Western_ gained on the _Sirius_ fifty-six miles per day.

The _Great Western_ averaged seven and three-quarter miles per hour; the _Sirius_ barely averaged five and a half miles per hour.'

Such was the first voyage made across the Atlantic by these two early steamships, and there is something of the true philosophy of history to be found in the interest which their advent created. It is worthy of pa.s.sing note to learn what ultimately became of these celebrated vessels. The _Sirius_, not proving staunch enough for the Atlantic surges, was sent to open steam-communication between London and St Petersburg, in which trade she was for several years successfully employed. The _Great Western_ plied regularly from Bristol to New York until the year 1847, when she was sold to the Royal Mail Company, and ran as one of their crack ships until 1857, in which year she was broken up at Vauxhall as being obsolete and unable profitably to compete with the new cla.s.s of steamers being built.

The success of these two vessels may be said to have completely established steam as a condition of the transatlantic navigation of the future. 'In October 1838,' says Lindsay, in his _History of Merchant Shipping_, 'Sir John Tobin, a well-known merchant of Liverpool, seeing the importance of the intercourse now rapidly increasing between the Old and New Worlds, despatched on his own account a steamer to New York. She was built at Liverpool, after which place she was named, and made the pa.s.sage outwards in sixteen and a half days. It was now clearly proved that the service could be performed, not merely with profit to those who engaged in it, but with a regularity and speed which the finest description of sailing-vessels could not be expected to accomplish. If any doubts still existed on these important points, the second voyage of the _Great Western_ set them at rest, she having on this occasion accomplished the outward pa.s.sage in fourteen days sixteen hours, bringing with her the advices of the fastest American sailing-ships which had sailed from New York long before her, and thus proving the necessity of having the mails in future conveyed by steamers.'

In fact, as early as October 1838, the British government, being satisfied of the superiority of steam-packets over sailing-ships, issued advertis.e.m.e.nts inviting tenders for the conveyance of the American mails by the former cla.s.s of vessels. The owners of the _Great Western_, big with confidence in the reputation of that ship, applied for the contract; but, not a little to their chagrin, it was awarded to Mr (afterwards Sir Samuel) Cunard, who as far back as 1830 had proposed the establishment of a steam mail service across the Atlantic. The terms of the original contract were, that for the sum of fifty-five thousand pounds per annum, Messrs Cunard, Burns, and MacIver should supply three ships suitable for the purpose, and accomplish two voyages each month between Liverpool and the United States, leaving England at certain periods; but shortly afterwards it was deemed more expedient to name fixed dates of departure on both sides of the Western Ocean.

Subsequently, another ship was required to be added to the service, and the amount of the subsidy was raised to eighty-one thousand pounds a year. The steam mail service between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston was regularly established in 1840, the first vessel engaged in it being the _Britannia_, the pioneer ship of the present Cunard line.

We get an admirable idea of what these early steamships were from d.i.c.kens's account of this same _Britannia_, which was the vessel he crossed to America in on his first visit to that country in 1842. In one of his letters to John Forster, describing a storm they were overtaken by, he unconsciously reflects the wondering regard with which the world still viewed the triumphant achievements of the marine engine. 'For two or three hours,' he writes, 'we gave it up as a lost thing. This was not the exaggerated apprehension of a landsman merely. The head-engineer, who had been in one or the other of the Cunard vessels since they began running, had never seen such stress of weather; and I afterwards heard Captain Hewitt say that nothing but a steamer, and one of that strength, could have kept her course and stood it out. A sailing-vessel must have beaten off and driven where she would; while through all the fury of that gale they actually made fifty-four miles headlong through the tempest, straight on end, not varying their track in the least.' What would the skipper of one of the modern 'Atlantic greyhounds' think of such a feat? And, more interesting speculation still, what must d.i.c.kens himself have thought of the performances he lived to witness as against this astonishing accomplishment on the part of the old _Britannia_?

There exists a tendency to ridicule the early steamers as they appear in portraits, with their huge paddle-boxes; tall, thin, dog-eared funnels; and heavily-rigged masts, as though their engines were regarded as quite auxiliary to their sail-power, and by no means to be relied upon.

Contrasted with some of the leviathans of the present day, the steamers of half a century ago are no longer calculated to strike an awe into the beholder; but, in truth, some very fine vessels were built whilst the marine engine was still quite in its infancy. In a volume of the _Railway Magazine_ for 1839 is an account of what are termed colossal steamers. 'An immense steamer,' runs the description, 'upwards of two hundred feet long, was lately launched at Bristol, for plying between England and America; but the one now building at Carling & Co.'s, Limehouse, for the American Steam-navigation Company, surpa.s.ses anything of the kind hitherto made. She is to be named after our Queen, the _Victoria_; will cost from eighty to one hundred thousand pounds, has about one hundred and fifty men now employed daily upon her, and is expected to be finished in November next. The extreme length is about 253 feet; but she is 237 feet between the perpendiculars, 40-1/4 feet beam between the paddle-boxes, and twenty-seven feet one inch deep from the floor to the inner side of the spar-deck. The engines are two, of 250 horse-power each, with six feet four inch cylinders, and seven feet stroke. They are to be fitted with Hall's patent condensers, in addition to the common ones. She displaces at sixteen feet 2740 tons of water; her computed tonnage is 1800 tons. At the water-line every additional inch displaces eighteen and a half tons. The average speed is expected to be about two hundred nautical miles a day, and consumption of coal about thirty tons. The best Welsh coal is to be used. It is calculated she will make the outward pa.s.sage to New York in eighteen days, and the homeward in twelve, consuming 540 tons of coal out, and 360 home.

Expectation is on tiptoe for the first voyage of this gigantic steamer, alongside of which other steamers look like little fishing-boats.'

The next route on which steam-navigation was opened, following upon that of the North Atlantic pa.s.sage, was between Great Britain and India. The steamers of the Honourable Company had indeed doubled the Cape nearly two years before the _Sirius_ and _Great Western_ sailed upon their first trip. The _Nautical Magazine_ for 1836 contains the original prospectus issued by a syndicate of London merchants upon the subject of steam-communication with the East Indies. As an ill.u.s.tration of the almost incredible strides that have been made in ocean travelling since that period, this piece of literature is most instructive. The circular opens by announcing that it is proposed to establish steam traffic with India, extending, perhaps, even to Australia! It points out in sanguine terms how those distant parts of the earth, by the contemplated arrangement, 'will be reached at the outset in the short period of seventy-three days; and, when experience is obtained, this time will in all probability be reduced by one-third; shortening the distance by the route in question, from England to Australia, in forty days' steaming, at ten miles an hour. If two days be allowed for stoppages at stations, not averaging more than a thousand miles apart throughout the line, the whole time for pa.s.sing between the extreme points would only be sixty days, but a relay of vessels will follow, if the undertaking be matured, in which case twenty-four hours will be ample time at the depots, and a communication may be expected to be established, and kept up throughout the year, between England and Australia, in fifty days. It is reasonably expected that Bombay will be reached in forty-eight days, Madras in fifty-five, Calcutta in fifty-nine, Penang in fifty-seven, Singapore in sixty, Batavia in sixty-two, Canton in sixty-eight, and Mauritius in fifty-four days.'